ABSTRACT
After 8 years of President Hassan Rouhani’s tenure and a moderate parliament, Iranian political landscape has changed. The 11th Parliamentary elections of Iran were held on February 21, 2020. The election results were surprising as conservatives achieved a landslide success by winning 221 out of 290 seats, while the moderates could get only 30 seats. The election of Muhammad Ghalibaf as a Speaker of the parliament denotes an extraordinary influence of ultra-conservative faction in the newly elected parliament. He is an Iran–Iraq war veteran, former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC’s) Air Force, and has also served as a mayor of Tehran. Ebrahim Raisi is an ultra-conservative with a strong connection with military and judiciary bureaucracies of Iran. Practically, the conservatives have consolidated their power in all three pillars of state including Parliament, executive (President), and Judiciary. This leads to the question that how conservative government in Iran would shape the dynamics of domestic and regional politics, which affects the bilateral relationship of Iran and Pakistan. Historically, the conservatives remained tough to many bilateral issues. Border management, mechanisms of bilateral trade, sectarian tensions, Afghan Peace Process, and Pakistan–GCC relations often witnessed tough scrutiny by the conservative political leadership of Iran. In this context, this chapter is an attempt to understand the impact of Iranian elections on Pakistan–Iran relations. How a conservative political leadership of Iran would deal its relations with Pakistan, especially based on bilateral security and regional geopolitical matrix? The study assumes that the change in political landscape of Iran would limit Pakistan’s mediatory role in Persian Gulf conflicts, while lesser cooperation might prevail between the two countries on security-related issues such as border management and Afghan peace process. Tehran’s strong support to Shiite community in Pakistan might further add mutual mistrust that may hamper cooperation mechanisms in bilateral and regional political and security issues. This is a hypothesis-driven research based on qualitative – primary and secondary – literature review and elite interviews of Pakistani and Iranian officials.
